]]>Easter Sunday is a big deal in America. A bite-the-ears-off-the-chocolate-bunny kind of big deal. I learned this early on after my first year in school here when I was 5-years-old.

It was kindergarten, and children in school were whispering about Easter baskets, jelly beans, chocolate eggs, and exaggerating about 12-inch tall bunnies made out of chocolate. My eyes widened as I listened in fascination, images of baskets taller than me, piled high with sugary treats that crunched against my teeth danced before my eyes. I knew what I had to do as soon as school let out for Easter break: I would run home like the wind and tell my grandmother, “There’s something else we don’t know about America!”

Ever since I started school I had been the one to burst in through my family’s house doors and announce, in detail, all that we had to do if we were going to keep on living here in the United States. I had been the one to report on turkeys — not chickens — for a holiday known as Thanksgiving. My scribbled orders regarding Halloween and “tricker tree” and costumes had been delivered just this past October.

And now… Easter baskets? My buckle shoes slapped against the uneven sidewalk pavement as I tore down the block and a half distance from home to school. I burst into the house: “Abuelita! We need to buy baskets and fill them with candy and you have to hide them so we have to look for them and then tell us it was a rabbit that came to our house! By Sunday!”

This wouldn’t be a problem for my grandmother, I knew she could do it. Just a walk to the corner grocery store and we’d be just like any other American family. Except for the very big difference that it is GOOD FRIDAY that Colombians go all out, not Easter Sunday.

Oh, Colombians can do Good Friday up right. We keep that day as solemn as the day after Lincoln was shot. There is quiet observance, respectful voices, limited use of electricity. We are subdued in clothing and manner and in reenactment of the drama of Holy Week. It’s not a sad time, not at all, it is a time of hushed excitement for those like the kind of little girl that I was: in love with the heart ache of penance and humility. Walking the Stations of the Cross, kneeling before each Passion of Christ one by one, reading and hearing of Jesus’ arduous climb to His final stop on Mount Calvary — words here can’t do justice to what kind of mystical experience that was for a young child.

In our lives growing up, the concept of separation of church and state was unknown. The whole world was walking in Jesus’ footsteps from Thursday through Sunday, weren’t we? That’s how I saw it in my mind. La Semana Santa, Holy Week, when we commemorate and memorialize Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. I knew the timetable by heart: on Thursday, He was arrested. On Friday, He was crucified. On Saturday, we wept. On Sunday, He rose again.

My brothers and sisters and I would wrap ourselves up in flat sheets and tie oversize belts around our waists. We’d put on our older sisters’ long brunette wigs and drag our feet, hunched over, across the kitchen floor, bearing brooms on our bent over backs. No one stopped us. I don’t think there was ever a time that a group of children were more in the moment than we were during our Holy Week dramatizations.

Our drama was luscious and no parody. Our scenes were complete with wiping the sweat off the brow from whomever was lucky enough to star in the coveted role of Jesus.

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts… ” so Shakespeare tells us. But I’d go on to say, “And one man in his time plays many parts, but none felt more honored than imagining taking on — just for a martyred few seconds across a small kitchen floor — Jesus’ pain.”

Dear Americans, you can have your baskets of jelly bean speckled eggs buried in shredded plastic green grass. For a little girl of 5-years-old to be able to think that she was carrying even an ounce of back breaking weight in her beloved Jesus’ name, well, really… bitten off chocolate bunny ears and foil wrapped eggs pale in comparison.

“Please, don’t waste time wondering and worrying,’’ I told her. “You don’t know what is going to happen, yet.”

And, then my words bit me in the rear. I said something I myself needed to hear.

In recent days, I have had a worry on my mind…a worry that despite my belief in “lo que viene, viene,” I can’t shake…or shake for long.

It’s easy not to worry when there is nothing to worry about, right?

But, to quote a friend: “If you’re going to pray about it, don’t worry and if you’re going to worry, don’t pray.”

Wise, right?

That’s what I try to practice for my personal peace, and model for my child. Wouldn’t it be awesome to raise someone who doesn’t over-worry, but who goes with the flow, is the branch that bends, but doesn’t break?

Wouldn’t it be fabulous to always be that person, the one who smiles in the face of adversity? Who lives comfortably in the questions?

I try. De verdad, I do. Because I have seen chaos turn into fabulousness, and looking back, the worry fue pa’ nada.

In the grip of it all, it’s easy to forget, though. To revert to the reptilian brain that doesn’t trust fate, doesn’t understand that worry kills time badly.

But, since the “don’t worry” exchange with my daughter, I have chilled a bit, focused on enjoying the holiday season with my family — the decorating, the baking, the cheesy Christmas cartoons.

Lucky me. My little one — through words, action, gestures — reminds me of the important stuff, offers lessons that make me a happier human, and maybe even a better mother.

Life. Que special it is, indeed. Even in the midst of the messy.

But, here’s to less worry in 2013, anyway.

Disclosure: This del alma is sponsored by Hallmark and the Life is a Special Occasion campaign. To receive notices on Hallmark products and special offers sign up for the newsletter.

Childhood memories are vivid, almost indescribable in their detail, and impossible to forget. A Christmas memory I have is that of a black velvet dress a family friend gave to me for my seventh Christmas.

The top half of the dress was a snow white sheer fabric embroidered with random small snowflakes that floated across the chest and onto the shoulders. The bottom half, oh the bottom half of that dress was an exquisite spinning skirt of coal black velvet. Not the cut cotton velvet of today, but the true lush silk fabric of queens.

To wear with this grand dress, my mother bought me a pair of pale pink tights the color of ballet slippers and brushed velvet Mary Janes. When Christmas Day came and I finally was able to wear the dress, I could scarcely believe it was mine. I didn’t have many beautiful things, and my appreciation for what I wore that day went far beyond gratefulness to incredulity.

The dress was intoxicating and I couldn’t resist spinning and spinning in circles, not on my toes, but pivoting on the sturdy heel of my buckle shoes. Sunlight filled the dining room of our second floor rented flat and my mother had Bing Crosby on the stereo, playing at the highest volume level that record player had. Arms out at my side, toes up, heels down, with my eyes closed–I spun and spun, my black velvet skirt undulating with me. No one told me to stop, my family of six siblings by-stepping me while I twirled in the middle of what must have been a very small dining room. I remember hearing the music, seeing no one else around me, and the feel of the velvet on my fingertips as the skirt skimmed my hands. I felt like a queen in the middle of her castle.

The smoothness of that velvet against my skin, almost like running water, is a sensation I’ve never forgotten. Maybe it was because I had never felt velvet before, maybe it was because of the extravagance of such a fabric for a girl like me–all these reasons fill me, as I remember that little girl twirling and lost in another world, feeling her black velvet dress spin around her.

At Christmas time now, in my adult life, my husband and I take our three children to see a live performance of A Christmas Carol every year. The five of us arrive at the theatre and tickets in hand, we locate our seats. When we find them, I pass my winter coat to my husband. I lean back into my plush chair, and feel it surround me. I can’t stop a smile tinged with tears. I press the palm of my hands against the pile of the wine red fabric underneath me and look at my handsome husband and my three beautiful sons. I run my fingers across the silken velvet of my chair, feeling like a queen.

That’s from the subtitle of the newly released Count on Me: Tales of Sisterhoods and Fierce Friendships (Atria Books).

From the national networking group Las Comadres Para Las Americas, founded by Nora de Hoyos Comstock. The book is edited by Adriana V. López and features stories from 11 Latina writers and one Latino man, all focused on the friendships that have helped them deal with the tough stuff.

In the video below, Comstock talks about Las Comadres and details the book and authors, which include abiola Santiago, Luis Alberto Urrea, Reyna Grande, and Teresa Rodríguez, and many more.

The Giveaway

The publisher is giving away one book to a Tiki Tiki reader.

All you have to do is tell us something about your most fierce friendship, about your Comadre.

The giveaway runs through midnight, Sunday, Dec. 16. The winner will be chosen at random.

What They’re Saying

“Intimate, interesting and always entertaining, Count on Me is filled with much LTLC– Latina Tender Loving Care: readers everywhere will surely cherish it — for it is not only a wonderfully written book, but one to be kept and cherished by future generations.”– Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize winner & author, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.

I walked alone along the riverbank. In the dawning light, it shimmered with the hues of day fighting away the shadows of night, while the multitude of trees and shrubbery that grew for miles and miles along the riverbank still shrouded the land in shadow. Suddenly, to the left of me, about ten yards southeast along the river beyond the twisted path my sisters and I had worn into the thicket, two small figures ran past me in and out of the dusty brush right up to the river’s edge. They ran along the bank, skirting it so closely that pebbles flew off their footsteps and bounced down into the water. Their faces were indistinguishable in the dark and their white outfits were muted by the lack of sunlight, but I could see that they were little boys running away from something—or someone.
It didn’t take very long to see who they were running from. Behind them, a woman in a pale dress came running, screaming at the boys, begging them to stop. Her long black hair whipped behind her as she fought through the brush. It was clear to me she was worried—frantic, even—that they might fall into the river.

“Hay mis hijos!” she screamed as she side-stepped ruts and rocks with her small bare feet.

The short trees tore at her immaculate white dress, but she didn’t care. She pulled herself free of any tree limbs that clawed at her and kept chasing after her children, never losing sight of them.

“Hey,” I screamed after the children. They didn’t turn to look at me or acknowledge me in any way. They were getting dangerously close to a cliff at the edge of the river. I left the security of our path and darted after them. They still ran parallel to the waters of the Rio Grande, much too close to the current that roared furiously below. The waters here were dark and angry, almost violent—nothing like our friendly swimming hole. I sped up, afraid they might lose their footing.

Too late, I screamed for them to get away from the edge. In a second, they were falling, both of them, one behind the other. Into the water they went, making loud splashes as they fought to stay afloat. Without thinking, I scrambled up to the edge and jumped in after them.

About Summer of the Mariposas and its Author

Summer of the Mariposas, was released by
Tu Books in October 2012. In this unique Mexican American retelling of The Odyssey, Odilia Garza and her four younger sisters find a dead man’s body in their swimming hole and embark on a risky journey to return him to his family in Mexico. Their journey back home to Texas, however, is fraught with even more danger, as they encounter magical beings and must learn to trust themselves and each other. Kirkus Reviews says, “Originality and vibrancy shine through to make [this story] a worthwhile read.”

McCall’s debut book for young adults, Under the Mesquite (Lee & Low Books, 2011), won the American Library Association’s 2012 Pura Belpré Award and was a William C. Morris YA Debut Award Honor Book. It was also included on the Young Adult Library Services Association’s Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults list and was an Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Finalist from the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents.

McCall, who teaches English and Language Arts at a junior high school, lives in San Antonio with her family.

Latinize Thanksgiving Dessert

I heard a feature on the news radio about keeping Thanksgiving mostly traditional and not going too crazy on the gourmet. To that end, the guy being interviewed said every Thanksgiving table needs pie.

Me gusta pie. I do. But, my Cuban-ish Thanksgiving table has Pumpkin Flan, not pie. If a guest wants to bring a pie, fabuloso. But, my energy and effort goes to the flan I am famous for each Thanksgiving.

Gracias for the Flan

I nearly cried in the hallway at my daughter’s school this week: Because she told the world she loves my flan. My Thanksgiving flan.

The badly photographed image above is an excerpt from the nearly-9-year-old’s Fall essay. It was pinned to the wall in the hallway. The first page was all about how she loves to play in the leaves and make art from acorns, but the second had this:

“I love the turkey that my mom makes. She also makes delicious cranberry sauce and gravy. But, I love her pumpkin flan most of all. Flan is sort of a Cuban custard, and it’s very creamy.”

Can you tell what I am most thankful for? Esta nena, who reminds me that though it is sometimes hard and lonely to promote the culture far from the homeland, it is worth it. Something usually sticks.

The other day, she had to give a talk on her heritage, and while she is a mixed bag of DNA, with everything from Cuban to Swedish in there, she picked Cuba.

This excitement of mine may appear overblown, but realize that I get dismissed and sometimes ignored on the whole culture thing. I have to work extra hard to speak Spanish with her. So when she embraces something in our culture, I get teary and silly. (Even, if what she’s embracing is just a flan.)

I don’t know how she is going to identify as she grows. That’s up to her, really. Identity is personal, comes from the seat of your soul, I think. But, my kid’s essay — hung for all to see — gives me hope that one day, at her own Thanksgiving table, she will be serving her mama’s flan and sharing a piece of herself, and her history, with those at her table.

My daughter was born three days before Thanksgiving 9-years-ago. For that gift, I am eternally grateful. This year, as an early birthday present, mama will let her have all the extra flan she wants.

]]>For years, I sat on the floor in front of my Abuela as she curled my dark hair around her fingers in the shape of ringlets, and told me story after story. Hours and hours of tales about life in South America, her childhood, her family, the people of her small village. Stories of saints and miracles and bulls on her father’s ranch that would get loose and chase her, and how she barely survived–only finding safety in a nearby tree.

She was the queen of the short story, and I was her rapt audience. Each story a fresh one, never repeated, and her words made them come to life. When she spoke, I’d see her running, her thick long braids trailing behind her. When she jumped for that tree branch to escape the bull, I jumped with her. I’d forget to breathe as she told me how she felt the earth shaking as the bull’s hooves pounded the ground behind her. I’d squint with her as the explained how he had come up over the hill with the noon sun behind him, blinding her until he was almost at her feet.

I’d stare straight ahead, fixated, as she combed my hair–her stories taking me someplace else, taking me to her life. Every time, I disappeared into the images she created for me.

Her stories never stopped, even as I grew older. I’d come home to visit from college and sit on the sofa next to her, and she’d start a story. She had such a treasury stored away in her mind, each adventure told with a magic that to this day, remembering them brings them back to life, as full of blue skies and green grass as when I first heard them forty years ago.

She never read to me out of a book, all of her stories were from her mouth.

We’re told in every single parenting publication there is, to read to our children. And I agree 100 percent with this practice, but I want my children to get lost in my life, as I did in my Abuela’s.

I’ve begun to tell my three boys more and more stories about my growing up, in bright detail. I tell them about the 10 foot long coiled up telephone cord that I’d stretch into the hall closet so I could have privacy with my phone calls. I tell them about the three channels that we had on television, and how you had to stand up and cross the room to change the station–manually clicking a too-hard-to-turn knob to a new show.

I describe the hot, muggy Milwaukee summers, and how my two brothers and I would go to the pool across the wooden bridge from our house. My grandmother would give us 35 cents each; a dime for the metal basket to place our clothes in and 25 cents to each buy a bag of cheese popcorn for when we’d come out of the pool, famished. One summer, we figured out that if we all shared a basket, we’d have 20 cents extra and could get two banana popsicles.

I paint a picture for my children, so they see a skinny, brown-skinned girl with hair thicker than a broom, sitting in between two brothers on a park bench alongside the chain fence of a pool, sunburned shoulders in the days before sunscreen, fingertips orange with cheese dust.

I want my stories to play in their heads for years to come, exactly as my Abuela’s stories still do for me.

Because it is this vision of a little girl with the flying black braids, running as if the devil himself is chasing her and scrambling up a tree with her heart in her throat–that is the picture of my Abuela that lives in my mind forever.

Fall is the season in which I retreat a little, slow down, go inward. On purpose.

With a new job, new kid commitments, it’s been a toda bala around here.

And, given the divisive election year, there is too much noise in my life. Is your Facebook stream freaking you out, too?

It’s my own fault, really.

By 5:45 a.m. I have two newspapers in hand and all the way into work, I listen to news and politics. And, I see what people I like and love say on social media, which isn’t always a good thing.

It’s making me too sad. Too mad. Like, a lot.

My habit of disconnecting started one October 13 years ago, when my brand new acupuncturist said I needed to rest and take a cue from the seasons, for afterall, we too are a part of nature.

That can sound mumbo jumbo, no? But that advice has since given me permission to say “No.” Permission to do less and focus instead on what most matters, despite how hard it can be to turn down holiday pachangas, outings and gatherings. This year, I am adding “reading, listening to less political boberia.”

As I watch leaves turn golden and fall into massive piles here in Nashville, it as my daily reminder to let go and be present. (And, I welcome it despite the fact that the cold winter that always follows is my most disliked.)

Ya, I am ready.

Are you?

Do you give yourself time to disconnect, reflect?

Is there someone in your life who could use a reminder to slow down, shout less into social media streams, to let go?

Disclosure: This del alma is sponsored by Hallmark and the Life is a Special Occasion campaign. To receive notices on Hallmark products and special offers sign up for the newsletter.

I recognized you by the accent, I told them. The so-very recognizable fast Cuban sing-song.

Now, listen, if this exchange had taken place in Miami or West New York, it would have been completely ridiculous. But, this was in a suburban grocery store in Nashville. I am allowed to get all overly excited about running into my people.

On most days, my kid isn’t exposed to her roots, her people of origin much…My spraying Violetas in her hair doesn’t really count and a quick encounter with strangers in a grocery isn’t enough..

So, I often attempt to connect her via the way Mamas and Abuelitas have been doing for millennia: Food.

Together, we’ve made flan, arepas, tres leches cake, guava pastelitos, paletas, dulce de leche and ice cream with turron. The flan is the big winner. She says I make the best flan in the universe.

The latest culture clincher: Corn tortillas.

There are no tortillas in Cuban cooking, but on a beautiful Saturday morning we went to the Latin grocery and bought the tortilla press and comal. We strolled the aisles as if the little market was a museum. We sniffed spices, read labels in Spanish. I bought her a giant Mexican cookie.

At home, we mixed and rolled the masa.

She stood on a stool next to me, rolled the masa into small balls with determined hands and watched as something as simple as ground corn and water turned into something warm and delicious.

It took us a long time to get through the double batch. We talked and laughed and ate hot tortillas as they came off the cast iron comal. No doubt we repeated a domestically perfect scene played out a million times in other kitchens.

In the end, as we served the heaping platter of tortillas during a Build Your Own Taquito Pot Luck, she told the kids who came over that she made those delicious tortillas.